How do you decide on each child’s name? Are they named after someone or do the names mean something to you?

Our oldest daughter is named after one of my best friends in college. With Kaitlin, Alyssa, Sadie and Savannah we simply chose names that we liked and I dedicated an entire post to the reasons behind Isabella Promise’s name.

Each of our boys is named after at least one man that we admire. Matthew from the Bible, Wesley is a family name, Mather is a tip of the hat to three Puritan ministers, Jackson after ‘Stonewall’ Jackson and Bradford after William Bradford the author of Of Plymouth Plantation. (Several of these names are middle names.)

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“My kindergartener has just begun to read and we would like to have him begin reading his Bible. Which versions have you tried, if any, at this age. I tend to think that if he read a Story Book Bible that it would stray from…well, the Bible.”

We have mainly used the NKJV for our children, but we also regularly use the Geneva, NAS, ESV and KJV in our home and would be happy with our children reading from any of those versions as well. Our kids start reading from the Bible as soon as they are able to read so we offer them a lot of help initially and they gradually become accustomed to the language.

Here are some tips for choosing a Bible for your beginning reader:

Pick a version that you and your husband believe is accurate.

Pick a version that you will be happy with your child memorizing. (If your children spend regular, frequent time reading God’s Word, they will begin to memorize large portions of it.)

Large print

No commentary

Get a sturdy Bible or purchase a tough case to store it in.

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What is your list of necessary baby equipment?

Of course the only thing that you ‘need’ for a baby is food and someone to love him, but there are certainly some things that make caring for a baby easier other than diapers and clothes.

Car seat

Diaper bag

Pack ‘n’ Play with a bassinet insert

Baby carrier – I consistently and regularly use both a Moby and an Ergo.

High chair or booster seat

Swing (optional)

Hmm, we do keep things to a minimum, but I think that I may be forgetting something….any ideas?

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Are you involved in a church that has a youth group? Do you participate and how?

Our church doesn’t have a youth group. 🙂

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Come back later today for an opportunity to win this:

Be sure to visit the other moms of many to read their answers to your questions.

I so enjoyed reading your children’s names and why you chose them! We have done a lot of the same with our 10, some named after folks, some not. I think maybe we used some really good first names as middle names early on though, like David, Andrew, etc.
Oh well, they all got named!
Agree also with your Bible recommendations. The Bible storybooks…I have found 1 or 2 that are accurate to the Biblical text, but why search for one when you can use the Bible itself? It is such a JOY to each of my children when they can participate in our morning Proverbs study by reading a verse or 2, and not just listening along! I think those early joys give them a desire to read God’s Word on their own too.
Enjoyed this week’s Q&A,Kim!

We have no problem with commentaries. We use them and encourage our children to use them. However, we do tend to avoid Bible story books simply because we’d rather the children hear the stories as recorded by God in His Word. We don’t think there is anything wrong with Bible stories, but just prefer to choose the Bible.

Ive been meaning to ask this question for a while and keep forgetting! But here it is: with Bible reading, how do you guys address the less child friendly stories in the Bible? My oldest loves reading the Bible and we read a lot together as a family. But there are those stories that we read through and I hope they dont catch what is really going on! lol, some conversations I am not ready to have with them. They are 6 and under. Thanks!

As the children have questions we answer them simply. We’ve found that they haven’t been curious about ‘those’ issues until they were ready to start hearing about them. Sometimes we, as parents, may not feel ready, but if they’re asking, they probably are.

We answer questions simply and only go into as much depth as they need. If they have follow up questions after our fist simple answer, then we give them more info until their curiosity is satisfied.

The thing about churches with no youth group is that they end up having one informally simply because there is a group of teens that interact within the church. I think the real question is how that age group and their interaction is handled. What does the church do to help that them mature even more at a time when they are getting ready to head out into the world? What can that group do that others cannot? Those younger can’t drive and don’t have the freedom to go serve in the same way. Those older often have young children that make it more difficult for them to serve in the same ways. I think it’s wonderful to encourage this age group to serve the community in a wide variety of ways.

A few words from Jim Jordan on youth groups…

“The ones I was in when young were led by the pastor with one other couple. A good youth group would sing psalms, study the Bible, go to old-folks-homes and sing, learn hospital visitation, and in general engage in training in charity. But the point is that kids DO get together and they DO learn from older kids. God made them that way. So, do a good job of it.”

I have been a member of churches with no youth groups for over 30 years.

While it’s true that the youth in a church will get together, the question is who does the Bible say is responsible for the teens or youth within the church?

Who is responsible for supervision, activities that are chosen, the behavior of the children/young adults in the group? Does the Bible give this responsibility to the church, the pastor, the youth pastor or to whomever volunteers to plan youth activities? Or does the Bible give the responsibility for children/teens/young adults to their parents?

In all my years in churches without youth groups and now as we have ‘youth group’ aged children (15, 14, 13 and 12), I’ve seen parents taking the responsibility to guide, supervise and direct their teen children. We’ve seen families work together serving other families and the community. We’ve seen families getting together and fellowshipping as families.

In contrast to the world’s statistics of 75-85% of youth leaving the church by the time they graduate college, we’ve seen an opposite trend, almost 100% of our youth either continue their membership in our church or have transferred their membership to a Bible-believing church in the area where God has called their family (I’m one of those youth). And these adults aren’t simply church members, they are almost 100% choosing to consistently follow our Lord Jesus Christ in spite of the many costs of standing up against our God-hating culture. It’s been beautiful to watch!

So, no, it’s not a question of whether or not the youth will get together. It’s a question of who God has given the responsibility of raising, training those children.

There are a lot of false dichotomies in these questions and in the commentary that follows. It’s important to believe that Christian parents are the primary authorities over their children, and that they have the primary responsibility to nurture and instruct their children in the Lord, without forbidding more than the Bible forbids or drawing lines the Bible does not draw.

After all, pastors and elders also have a certain level of authority over, and responsibility for, all the sheep in their flock, including the children — including your children. That’s why, for example, Pastor Paul wrote Ephesians 6.1-3 and Colossians 3.20 directly to the children in the churches.

I’m no advocate of youth groups, per se, but familio-centricism is just as problematic (in different ways), and it’s certainly not reflective of Jesus’ teaching in the Gospels on the the priority of the family of God over the biological family, important though the redeemed biological family be. Hyper-family-ism in Reformed circles is becoming just as big a problem as the youth-group culture. Brandy’s words, and Jordan’s quote, have the proper balance; it’s a less reactionary and more biblical response to the youth-group culture than the likes of Vision Forum and others. In short, there’s nothing in the Bible that says parents should not allow pastors and Sunday School teachers to lead and instruct their children in certain contexts. We must respond to the degradation of the family in our culture, and even in the church, but swinging the pendulum too far, further than the Bible permits, is no solution.

Thanks Jeremy. I agree with everything that you said and my comments were not meant to condemn youth groups per se. Obviously churches have a vital role in instructing families, including the children.

My reaction is to the status quo of today’s churches and youth groups, which generally includes an abdication of parental responsibility for teen children and a replacement of the nuclear family with the church youth group. And the assumption that if the church isn’t formally involved in youth programs and activities that the parents aren’t able to do the teaching and support the activities that are necessary for a young person’s development.

You are absolutely right, however, to say that there are ditches on both side of the road.

We’ve have seen beautiful success with the “no youth group” model in the churches that we’ve been part of and, in our experience, have seen contrasting results in the churches with vibrant youth group programs.